Government is inept

To the editor: How much money is enough? How much do we need to raise a family and maintain a comfortable lifestyle? When the lust for money destroys others, or affects the very fabric of our nation, that green needs to be stopped. Now we see the sale of a sports team that has been a big part of the local fan base for 70 years. I’m talking about the sale of the Steelers. There’s no other reason for the sale other than the lust for more money. The proposed sale is to be made to someone who’s not a force trying to build a world-class football team, but to an “investor.” We can recall the sale of Weirton Steel to the investors of ISG, and then to the investor named Mittal, and we can drive through Weirton and see the final results. Remember how ISG and Mittal told us how committed they were to making Weirton Steel a top player in the world’s steel industry? How’d that turn out? Now we’re told the investor who’s interested in buying the Steelers wants to keep the team in Pittsburgh and stay a part of the city. Bull. If he can tear the team apart and make a profit, he’ll do it. Additionally, a foreign investor has bought another American icon, Budweiser Beer. That 147-year-old company will probably disappear, get a new label and taste like rice wine. Not to mention the thousands of jobs that will be lost and sent to a foreign country. Are there no businesses or properties in this country that are safe from this march to bigger profits? Is the very ground we stand on for sale to the highest bidder? We’re selling our national identity to anyone who can come up with the money, and driving our working people into poverty. This whole free trade thing is based on misinformation and the boosting of stock values. Our Constitution specifically forbids the sale of America to foreign investors, but the lobbyists have convinced our lawmakers that it’s simply a business transaction. So Congress remains mute and takes those campaign contributions to their re-election efforts and the American taxpayer provides the money for their own demise. Companies like Anheuser-Busch, Weirton Steel, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, Levi Strauss, RCA, Whirlpool and Zenith are no longer American companies and have shed millions of jobs so investors could make more money. Investors who couldn’t care less about the people who built these companies have crippled our economy and sold us on the idea that cheaper is better. What they’ve never told us is that your future and your country’s future is falling apart. In the not too distant future, we’ll see huge personal debt, more people in poverty, fewer and fewer jobs. Our economy is going into free-fall, and our government is sound asleep and completely inept. The ability to own you own home and retire with dignity will be a distant memory. We’re becoming a Third World nation, and nobody seems to see it. Stan Galownia Mingo Junction